Hey folks, I interviewed Brannon Braga for TrekCore and asked him to comment on Deep Space Nine.

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My honest opinion: Brannon Braga [along with Rick Berman] ran the Star trek franchise into the ground through laziness, lack of vision and disdain for the franchises' fandom. I wouldn't take his "word" on anything and his opinions are without value. He is simply a scumbag who knows how to play the system.

I interviewed Braga back when First Contact came out, and he came as close as he could to admitting that a lot of his stuff on Voyager wasn't what he wanted to write, but a situation where the writing room wanted to do a character(/soap opera) piece, but the studio insisted that the ship be in danger, so he co-wrote a 'frame' where an invented nebula effect was going to destroy the ship, and a sweep of inventideron particles solved the problem 41 minutes in.

I interviewed Braga back when First Contact came out, and he came as close as he could to admitting that a lot of his stuff on Voyager wasn't what he wanted to write, but a situation where the writing room wanted to do a character(/soap opera) piece, but the studio insisted that the ship be in danger, so he co-wrote a 'frame' where an invented nebula effect was going to destroy the ship, and a sweep of inventideron particles solved the problem 41 minutes in.

I interviewed Braga back when First Contact came out, and he came as close as he could to admitting that a lot of his stuff on Voyager wasn't what he wanted to write, but a situation where the writing room wanted to do a character(/soap opera) piece, but the studio insisted that the ship be in danger, so he co-wrote a 'frame' where an invented nebula effect was going to destroy the ship, and a sweep of inventideron particles solved the problem 41 minutes in.

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Sounds like an interesting interview. Got a copy or link for it?

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SFX, around issue 20-ish. But I suspect some of the Voyager-related stuff remains on the tape, not the print version - First Contact was the big focus.

I saw the interview. It's worth watching. You can believe what he says or not. But I agree with some of his statements... they should have held off on VOY, let DS9 run on its own. I guess the suits wanted VOY so they could launch UPN.

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Braga, like the devil, is a being you don't want to look in the eyes nor listen to his words of deception for fear of being warped and led astray. Berman & Braga know what to say and how to say it. One thing their tenure on Trek taught them was how to shmooze like politicians.

Sure Braga was just an employee. Ultimately, he had to do what his bosses said, however, how he did it was up to him.

The folks on DS9 worked hard to put out a drama that pushed the envelope and challanged preconceptions. Somtimes they succeeded, sometimes they didn't. And even with that pushing and challanging they had to respect and adhere to some of Paramounts rules. They had to pick and choose their fights, as well as, pay various prices. The folks at DS9 are respected because they dared to strive for greatness within the strictures laid down by TPTB.

Braga was never so brave or bold. He was a cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers hack who seemed to view himself as being above the material. He took the job-title and cashed the checks, he can't now throw up his hands and disavow or deflect responsibility for that which he served as producer or executive-producer/showrunner.

The other that gets me about Braga is when he throws out there how many hours of Star Trek programing he was responsible for. Newsflash: quality trumps quantity everytime. Pumping out 300 hours (or whatever the # be) of generally mediocre-at-best Star Trek is not something to brag about (especially, when the graph of audience viewership and satisfaction shows constant decline over the period of your tenure/stewardship).

So to boil it all down: Braga is a putz - In my opinion. In fact this who post is just my opinion and should not be regarded as anything more than that.

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This sums up my feelings exactly. A savy writer and showrunner knows how to get arround the idiotic ideas or suggestions of of executives. The reality is that a BIG part of the problem was also Berman. Ira Behr himself has commented on the absurd arguments that he would get into with Berman over story concepts for DS9 (like Berman fighting him on whether Nog could lose a leg). Berman had no vision and was company man at heart. He did not really care what they put out as long as the execs were happy. Neither her nor Braga were all that interested in pushing the envelope. They were just interested in treading water...and that was what ultimately killed Prime Trek.

My honest opinion: Brannon Braga [along with Rick Berman] ran the Star trek franchise into the ground through laziness, lack of vision and disdain for the franchises' fandom. I wouldn't take his "word" on anything and his opinions are without value. He is simply a scumbag who knows how to play the system.

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Did he give you a swirly in high school or something?

Braga, like the devil, is a being you don't want to look in the eyes nor listen to his words of deception for fear of being warped and led astray. Berman & Braga know what to say and how to say it. One thing their tenure on Trek taught them was how to shmooze like politicians.

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So to boil it all down: Braga is a putz - In my opinion. In fact this who post is just my opinion and should not be regarded as anything more than that.

I think network meddling can be a cover your ass move, but it can also be true. I don't think any of us know enough to say which is the case with Braga.

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You're right, we don't. Then again, we don't need to. Braga was no newb when he signed onto Voyager and Enterprise, he knew the culture, conditions and constraints. He also re-upped many times. Rather than test boundaries or rock boats (as others had successfully done) he opted to play things safe. At every turn he sought to prove he was a "good company man" all the way.

If he had stood up at all back then he would be regarded differently now. But he didn't. We know this because he rose quickly and steadily through the ranks until he was in charge of "Voyager" and the fudge factory known as "Enterprise."

Now, as more time goes by, he just comes across as a guy trying to rewrite history.

My main passion is comic books and I can say with a high degree of confidence that corporate meddling is crippling a lot of the creative types at DC Comics right now.

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Not surprising considering how hyper-"corporate" everything seems to have become. Then again that pressure has always been around. The customer for any good or service is the person or entity that is cutting the check. Who wouldn't want to have a say in what they're bankrolling?

Also not all corporate input is bad. Many of the most popular and endearing features of a series' have come about as a result of "network meddling" (read Solow & Justman's book "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" for many examples). And as you probably already know, the history of comic books in America has always been a thing of publishers forever chasing the tail of profits by conforming their lines to meet public demand.

Given that Braga had a decent track record at TNG (Cause & Effect, Parallels, AGT), I'm willing to consider the possibility that meddling from execs at least played a role in lower quality stuff that he wrote. Does he still have some responsibility? Of course. But the Trek model looks frigging insane by today's standards (22-24 hour longs, every year, for 7 years) and a guy that has a decent number of good scripts to his name shouldn't have his butthole torn open constantly.

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Which is less than what TOS had to deal with (26 fifty-minute episodes a season). Some programs had orders of 32 one-hour episodes per season. In the context of history and the bigger picture Braga really has no excuse other than he didn't care beyond that threshold in which a hack would care.

My opinion. And, of course, I appreciate and respect all the differing outlooks represented here. Salute.

This sums up my feelings exactly. A savy writer and showrunner knows how to get arround the idiotic ideas or suggestions of of executives.

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Ira Behr couldn't when he did the Twilight Zone series for UPN.

The DS9 writers had it WAY easy, and they whine about how it wasn't easier.

The reality is that a BIG part of the problem was also Berman. Ira Behr himself has commented on the absurd arguments that he would get into with Berman over story concepts for DS9 (like Berman fighting him on whether Nog could lose a leg).

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Behr's a whiner who doesn't appreciate how things could've been worse.

Berman had no vision and was company man at heart. He did not really care what they put out as long as the execs were happy.

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He wanted DS9 to be the only Trek show on at the time and wait until it was done to do VOY. He had the right ideas, but couldn't fight off the Paramount Execs above him.

Neither her nor Braga were all that interested in pushing the envelope. They were just interested in treading water...and that was what ultimately killed Prime Trek.

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No they weren't, they're just scapegoats that get singled out for abuse by folks who want scapegoats.

To be fair to Braga, I DO think he and his writers came up with some pretty cool and inventive plots for VOY. Before I gave up on the show around the 5th season, I remember there being a lot of really clever scifi ideas and twists in there -- ideas which probably would have made for some excellent episodes of TNG at some earlier point.

The problem was that between the generic and lifeless VOY characters, and the reset button which had completely undercut the credibility of the show long ago, I was just never able to really care about anything that happened. It felt like the writers were just spinning their wheels the whole time, and wasting a bunch of energy on nothing.

The difference is one of those shows eventually found its footing (making its premature cancellation that much more cruel!)

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Any series' that takes 3-4 seasons to "find its footing" has been on way too long, and, by definition, couldn't be "cancelled prematurely." I am no fan of shows getting axed after 1 or 2 episodes, BUT if a series' can't find itself or an audience in 1 or 2 seasons then it needs to go.

Personally, I gave "Enterprise" a season and a half before I stopped watching. Now, I heard from many folks that it started to right itself in its fourth season, but so what? No one can say that ST: ENT wasn't give a fair shot.

The problem, pure and simple, was everyone took Star Trek for granted. They ALL figured if they put something, anything, out there that was set in the Trekverse that all the "trekkies" would go for it in a big way. Even the actors spoke of there association with Enterprise as a windfall which would bring them financial independence.

What surprised them was that the slim majority of Trekkers were discerning and had standards causing them to quickly turn their backs on the lackluster effort known as Enterprise. Sadly, however, there are more than few die-hard fanatics who would watch a dog taking a dump in a forrest every week if you labelled it "Star Trek." The slow leeching Braga & Berman started with Voyager turned into a full blown hemorrhage with Enterprise. And when it was diagnosed as terminal B&B just shrugged their shoulders and walked away. Poor Manny Cotto was left to make the funeral arrangements.